


O Come All Ye Hiphounds

by Aranhin



Category: The Secret World, secret world legends
Genre: Alcohol, Apiarybuzzings, Christmas, Company Christmas Party, Drinking, Drunk Shenanigans, F/F, Found Family, Other, don't tease the monks, dragon (faction), templar (faction)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 05:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13093158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aranhin/pseuds/Aranhin
Summary: Daimon Kiyota pays someone to spike the punch at the Templar christmas party.Meanwhile, several Dragon and an Illuminati get drunk just fine on their ownWritten for the Apiary Art Contest





	O Come All Ye Hiphounds

A Holiday Night On The Town:  
Lets Get Shitfaced In Seoul!

Kumiho Hotel Bar

Saturday, December 16th, 2017  
6PM KST / 9AM GMT / 4AM EDT  
RSVP - or don't.

  


Mooney holds the flier in his hands, and stares blankly at the cartoon scribble of a dragon behind the black text. It's barely more than a stick figure breathing fire, but it's lovingly rendered behind the text.

"Who, uh. Who drew the dragon?" He manages to look from the piece of paper to the bee who'd handed it to him - Maeve, decked out in a particularly fluffy white coat and actual for real deer antlers. _It's not just Yumi, now? How the hell do they stay on?_

"Grace." Maeve seems entirely unphased by how unambiguously terrible the drawing is. "So what do you think?"

"Well, uh." Why on earth were they asking him? There had to be bees they were closer to who had any knowledge of graphic design. "I don't know a whole lot about, you know, making fliers. But the text seems a little small, maybe?"

There's a moment of silence, during which they both sidestep to avoid a bee careening through Agartha, and then Maeve narrows their eyes slightly. "No, knobhead, I'm asking if you want to come. You're invited."  

Mooney blinks at them for a long moment, and then looks back at the paper. He tries to remember if there's anything in his calendar for that day - it's in less than a week, he really ought to know. But he draws a blank, and then shrugs. "I figured, given the dragon, it was a faction thing. But sure, I can come."

"Nah, it's more of a Fashion Check thing. A lot of us - Pixie, Grace, Yumi, and I - will be waiting for Rhii to be done with Templar Christmas party things so we can do our own. So, in the meantime, drinking."

"I'm, uh. I'm not sure your timing matches up, really, but alright."

Maeve shrugs. "You're clearly unfamiliar with her sleep schedule. Look - don't worry about it. I'll see you there."

And then they step backwards onto one of the agartha jump pads, and are gone.

Mooney looks after them for a moment, and then folds up the invitation and slips it into a back pocket - only afterwards noticing that his hands are now covered in fine rainbow glitter.

_God damn it!_

 

* * *

  


It's 8pm, December 15th, and Therese is exiting a dingy liquor store in New York with a paper bag tucked haphazardly in the crook of one elbow. The bag is filled with large bottles of Everclear, and to herself she marvels at having never had this idea before.

The only problem with her plan is - well - transportation on the day of the party. One can only carry so many flasks--

Oh, who was she kidding? She had infinite bee pockets. She could carry however many flasks she wanted. Besides, she'd done the math - or made Alessa do it, in any case - and it would only take ten flasks. She could fit ten flasks into her pockets, easy.

She's halfway across the parking lot when her phone buzzes, and it takes a long, frantic moment of juggling the paper back to get the damned thing out of her pocket. The number on the screen isn't one she knows offhand - not saved into her phone - but the area code is definitely Tokyo. Kaidan, most likely.

Therese answers the phone probably a second before it would have gone to message.

"Hello?"

There's a crackle of static on the other end before a very familiar voice says, "Ah! Kitten! My hero of the hour!"

"Daimon." She considers hanging up - she doesn't have time for another proverbial game of red-rover-cum-scavenger-hunt with inanimate objects. But she has a long walk back to the subway station that'll get her closest to the nearest Agartha portal, and he's at least an amusing conversationalist, if for nothing more than his absurd slang.

"I need a favor." says the voice on the other end of the phone. _Here we go…_ Therese rolls her eyes. But Daimon continues. "Well compensated - you need voot? Some clams? I've got you covered. Something else? I can get you anything. But first, the job. The job's the kicker."

Therese shifts the bag enough to hit a crosswalk button with her elbow, and keeps listening.

"I need you to see a man about a dog. Doesn't have to be a dog. The goal is to get those noodle juicing wurps of yours zozzled."

Fuck, talking to this guy required a dictionary of 1920's slang. "Zozzled?"

"You get that party half cut, my barlow. Besides, that holiday party of yours is like to be akin to absent treatment, ya dig?"

Half cut - she's heard that one before. He's asking her to spike the punch at the templar christmas party.

… Probably.

"I can do that." Therese agrees, casually, pointedly leaving out that she'd already been planning to do exactly that. This way is basically free money.

 

* * *

  


"Ok, ok, ok - wait - consider." 

It's 1am, December 17th, and the hotel bar is an hour away from closing - not the latest bar to close in the area, but also not the earliest. There are six bees at the counter, though earlier there had been more. Only five are actually sitting at the bar in stools, however, as Pixie is draped luxuriously on top of the bar in front of all of them. She's been like that for the last hour, somehow managing to take shots from such a reclined position.

The shot glass in her hand is empty, and she's turning the colored glass around between her and the light above her, squinting through the blue circle projected onto her face.

"Consider. Mooney wears a lot of green. And he hangs out with us Dragon more than he hangs out with any Lumies."

Mooney blinks at the tiny purple menace for a moment, preparing to be alarmed at whatever is going to come out of her mouth. Her last Great Idea, as she'd called it, had ended with several of them hiding in an only mostly empty dumpster outside of Harbaburesti waiting for a swarm of vampires to stop shrieking and posing and go back to their positions.

"What if we sneak him into HQ?"

There is a split second in which Mooney considers all of the ways this is a particularly terrible idea, and then several more in which he sits very still, waiting for the other bees to pipe up and bat down the idea as being too reckless--

But that never comes. Instead the other four - Grace, Yumi, Maeve, and Elvin - shrug or laugh or down the last of their drinks, and before Mooney can assent or dissent, Yumi and Pixie have him by the wrists and are pulling him along through the streets of Seoul.

It doesn't take long to reach the barrier, humming and green, with two monks on either side of the alleyway it stretches across. Mooney blinks at it nervously - he's seen bees run into these kinds of barriers. He isn't particularly fond of the idea of going flying back down the alleyway, but his drinking companions are set on it.

"Ok - you know how to cartwheel, right?" asks Yumi, completely ignoring both guards.

On closer examination, and against all odds, both monks are fast asleep. Mooney squints at them for a long moment before finally nodding to Yumi, who gestures toward the barrier.

"Go for it. Cartwheel through the barrier."

Mooney raises his eyebrows. "It can't be that easy."

But Pixie pats him enthusiastically on the back, and says, "Yumi and Elvin have snuck into Templar HQ with Rhii before. She's got pictures."

So Mooney sighs, and eyes the barrier once before bouncing slightly on his toes, and--

And he cartwheels right through the barrier. There's a rough tingle, and it makes a faintly angry electrical hum, and on the other side his hands and feet are all pins and needles, as though he'd sat on them for too long, but he's through.

The other five stroll through after him with no issues whatsoever - not even earning a disinterested hum from the barrier, nothing - and arrange themselves around him like a protective bubble. Pixie and Yumi take up the lead - fair, given that this was Pixie's idea in the first place - with Maeve and Elvin on either side, and the alarmingly tall Grace behind him. She spoke little, but there was something calming about having the other healer at his back. And not entirely just because her height meant that none of the monks would sneak up and spot them from behind.

The five of them give him a tour, of sorts - short and to the point. Pixie does the most talking, with Yumi and Elvin adding bits of information here and there - where they meet their boss, where their training hall is. Maeve, on the other hand, is almost entirely silent, focussed on their phone screen. When Mooney glances over at them, they tilt it up to show him the bright square. His eyes adjust to the light just enough to see that they're texting Rhii before it vibrates and they turn it back to themself.  

The whole area reminds him greatly of some of the estates he's seen in history books, and though he asks how long the property has been there, none of them have an answer for him. It's surprisingly - or perhaps not, given that it is the middle of the night - empty here. There are lights on in some areas of the estate, diffused green light softly spilling out into the courtyard from slightly cracked shutters, and periodically Mooney can see shapes passing behind those windows through the gaps. Most of the light, however, comes from the many green paper lanterns painted with the stylized dragon head of the Dragon. The stray monk moves across the estate grounds, not close enough to notice them - or, specifically, to notice that one of their members isn't a Dragon agent.  

In the middle of said courtyard there is a large round planter box made of stone, within it a medium-sized tree planted in the middle, and it's here that the five of them stop.

"Ok - we've gotta take a picture."  Elvin pulls his phone out and gestures slightly with it, and that catches Pixie's eye.

"Yeah! For, like, posterity or whatever!" She laughs, and then begins arranging people. "Yumi, you stand… yeah. And Grace, sit here…" Finally, with everyone else organized in a semi-circle, she turns her attention on Mooney. "Ok, I need you to slav squat here in the middle. Up on the stone bit."

Mooney pauses for a moment, both knowing and fearing that she's serious. Then she shoos at him, and he takes the position she's dictated. "So - are you taking the picture, then?"

But no - Pixie grins at him and then stretches herself out on her side at his feet, head propped up on one elbow.

"Shadow can do that." Elvin says from behind Mooney. In the months that Mooney has known, well, this entire group, he's only seen Elvin a handful of times - and Elvin's strange companion fewer than that. Now, Elvin is no longer holding his phone, and a dark shape is sweeping away from them, across the ground.

It solidifies and straightens in one swift movement, a silhouette of condensed darkness blinking bright eyes at them, Elvin's phone in one hand.

"Ready?" Elvin asks, and Shadow nods. "Alright - pose, everyone!"

Beside him, Yumi throws up a peace sign, and not knowing what else to do, Mooney copies her. The phone's flash goes off, bright and garish in the dark courtyard, and for a few seconds he blinks blindly.

When he can see again, Shadow is gone - Elvin's phone lying on the ground several yards away from them. Mooney stares blankly at it for a second-- and then the crunch of a footstep on gravel snaps his attention away from the phone.

Stepping around the statue to their right is one of the monks.

He's mere feet away - there's no way he doesn't see Mooney. No, in fact, the monk stares directly into Mooney's eyes, and though his pulse has skyrocketed, he finds he can't look away from the direct gaze.

 _Oh fuck._ He thinks. _Oh fuck, oh fuck. There's no way - we're blown. I'm blown_.

Mooney is ready to make a dash for the alleyway back out of the estate. Can he find his way back to the Agartha portal? Who knows - but a quiet corner, and his Agartha conduit--

But then the monk, face still set and expressionless, bows slightly, and just.

Walks away.  

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's 5:45PM on December 16th. Cloyse is rifling through a bookshelf in the Temple Club's library. She rarely gets the opportunity to come up to the balcony section - or rarely takes it, in any case. But the room is a font of knowledge that she doubts many of the agents take advantage of, and honestly? That's a shame.

 _A damned shame,_ she thinks again, flipping carefully through the pages of an early copy of the _Malleus Maleficarum_ \- not a first edition, but old enough.

There weren't a huge number of other agents that she knew - in general, let alone here. She thought she'd seen Rhiannon on her way in, but it had been through a doorway and by the time she'd given her coat over to the coat check and made a moment's small talk with the coat checker, the other woman was long gone.

At least - down below her, by one of the punch bowls - she recognized the blonde agent. Therese, she thought her name was. A reliable tank, if she recalled correctly.

Except that Therese was acting… shifty, was one way of putting it. There was something silver in her hand. A flask. And she was screwing the lid back on. Stirring the punch.

Cloyse raises an eyebrow, and then laughs slightly to herself.

 _Well, I guess I'll skip the punch, then._  

 

 

* * *

  
  


It's 8PM and in one of the upper parlours, Osterby is slumped over against Therese, who is drunkenly allowing him to crush her against the arm of the couch. "Therese," He manages, only slurring a little. "Therese, I'm real fucked up."

There's a moment of silence, and then Therese begins to giggle.

It takes a few moments for a serious thought to weasel its way into Osterby's mind, and he suddenly makes a rather valiant, if only semi-successful, attempt to sit up. "Therese, oh my god. Don't let him find out I'm drunk. Therese what if he fires me?"

"What? Who?" Therese squints at her fellow agent.

"Sonnac!" Osterby looks around, and then whispers the name, as if uttering it at all could potentially summon the man.

But Therese simply squints harder. "... The hedgehog?"

And then it's Osterby's turn to squint in confusion. "What? No, you idiot, _our boss._ "

Therese nods sagely, and pats Osterby on the shoulder. And then a moment later, a faintly terrified look crosses her face.

"Wait - Sonic the Hedgehog is our boss? _He's real?"_

 

 

* * *

  


Meanwhile, one floor directly below them, Sonnac is sitting with his face in his hands. From beside him, Mary Stuard gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. 

"Not used to a little booze?"

"No - no, that's not…" He waves her hand away, and then lets out a long sigh. "I'm only telling you this _because_ of the booze, but. Well. I just walked in on something… less than savory."

She leans in, eager for the gossip, and Sonnac glances back at her for a moment before saying,

"I needed something from my jacket, you see, and I'm afraid I found the coat room a little… occupied. By Dame Julia and - well, honestly, I didn't - I think it was Miss Plimmswood. Looked like her blouse. But they were definitely in a compromising position."

This confession is met with silence from his companion, who after a very long moment manages to squeak out, "At least they're having a good night?"

"Yes. Sure. And holding all the rest of us hostage to do so." Sonnac groans again, and shakes his head. "Why, oh why, could they not have walked the whole two blocks to the Tabula Rasa? Or quite literally anywhere other than the coat room."

"Anywhere?" Mary Stuard raises an eyebrow, and Sonnac shudders.

"No - perhaps not anywhere."

  


* * *

 

 

 

It's 10PM and Rhiannon is sitting on the steps to the temple club. The whole world feels like it's coming apart at the seams, like it's fuzzy and vague and won't stop moving, and while she presses her palms into the cold marble, she wonders how long it's been since she's been this drunk.

Not since Uni, surely.  

She's fairly certain she sent Maeve a text letting them know that they could come get her now - or that she was done - or something. She'd sent some kind of text. Probably.

But then she can hear voices from out in Temple Court rather than from behind her in the Temple Club, and they're familiar voices, at that. She starts to stand - to go to them instead of making them come to her - but the world spins dramatically and she plops unceremoniously back down onto the marble steps.

They would have to come to her.

The group comes around the corner like a rowdy bunch of teenagers. It's her friends - her _family_ , now, both the oldest and the newest. They're laughing and talking, Pixie giving the much larger Grace a shove. Yumi is arm-in-arm with her sister - who is the only one who looks even remotely sober.

Maeve is in the lead, phone in hand, but when their eyes meet Rhii's, they tuck it back into their pocket absentmindedly, attention on - well - Rhii.

Time seems to slip a little - the world spin - and then Maeve is sitting on the steps next to her. She's giggling at something, and then her head is in Maeve's lap. She's singing - can feel her infrequently-used vocal cords vibrate with the notes.

And whatever it is, Maeve is laughing, and the rest of the group - Pixie, and Grace, and Yumi, and Maria, and Ian - are settling on the steps around the two of them.

And Rhii thinks, _I'm home._

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write this fic for like. a while. This just finally afforded me the opportunity to do so, lmao. 
> 
> For anyone who doesn't live in the US / know what Everclear is - it's a 190-proof grain-based alcohol made in the US. It's relatively tasteless when mixed into other drinks, but due to it's potency has a bit of a reputation. 
> 
> The end wasn't supposed to be nearly as sentimental as it ended up being - Rhiannon is supposed to be singing raunchy christmas songs (such as Happy Holidays, You Bastards by Blink182).


End file.
